Categories: uncategorized
Date: 19 January 2008 09:16:34
I don't own my home, I don't drive, I live in a flat which doesn't have a garden, I don't have time to do craft stuff, I am not particularly maternal, I am not exactly domesticated and on the rare occassions I'm not cooking out of a packet or just doing a chicken breast and mash the recipie comes straight of Delia's How to Cook series and I am happily not married.
I do spend too much time doing work stuff and bring too much home with me, I do spend too much time using social networking / discussion sites on the computer, I do occassionally go and meet groups of interesting people from the internet, I talk too much religion and politics, I do regularly ship my daughter off to go to visit the relatives and thoroughly enjoy the break without any worry or regret and in the best possible way can't wait until she is independent and leaves home, I do eat too much junk food and I do get too over excited when I'm watching footie or rugby sometimes.
On the basis of the above I often find it quite difficult and like I have entered a foreign planet when I enter the world of "normal women" who want to talk about their gardens, recipies, conservatories and so forth just as they would find it strange entering my world sometimes. Therefore however inclusive a church womens group seeks to be it is, in reality, unlikely to be where I would feel comfortable. So should it even try to include people like me? Well, having been faced with the reality of this one recently I would say actually no.
Whilst I think that housegroups and so forth should be incredibly inclusive and diverse and that "single issue groups" are generally an awful idea I am now coming round to the fact that for some groups of people it is useful to just meet together and be who they are without bending over backwards to try and include those of us who don't meet that norm. I can see, particularly for women who miss the school gate a womans group which does womanly things is an incredibly useful idea and I think it should be encouraged.
As I say for some of us though it is just not our world. That's not to say that we don't do social or want to socially interact with other people from the church. Last night whilst the womans group were meeting to do their craft as they chatted I met another woman from the church who lives partly in real life and partly in cyberspace and we sat chatting about our world. Were we being excluded or even seeking to exclude ourselves from the main group? Again I would say strongly no. Not feeling part of a group isn't exclusion it's just not an appropriate group to be included within.
So todays conclusion is inclusion doesn't have to include everybody in everything. What it does need to do is seek to ensure there are a range of things going on and so everybody will have somewhere they feel comfortable. Personally I feel much more comfortable in unisex environments or in groups of women who have a full time career and/ or are (or have) engaged in some kind of higher education study.